John Braine

Nicolas Tredell (Independent Scholar - Europe)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Gina Lyle (University of York), Graham MacPhee (University of Manchester), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

Dates

Born 13 Apr 1922
Died 28 Oct 1986
Activity 1942-1986

Places

Born in England
Active in England

Activities

Primary

Novelist

Resources

Braine's Works

Save to Bookshelf

John Braine (1922-86) made a strong impact with his first novel,

Room at the Top

(1957), which became a best-seller and was adapted into a powerful British New Wave film in 1959. He went on to write twelve more novels, but these never enjoyed the same critical or commercial success as his first. He also produced two non-fiction books, a How-To manual called

Writing a Novel

(1974) and, in 1978, a critical biography of a writer with whom he felt some affinity, J(ohn) B(oynton) Priestley (1894-1984). Both of these are readable but undistinguished.

Braine is usually assigned to three overlapping categories. The first, and most important, is the “Angry Young Men”, which was neither a coherent movement nor (the usual view today) merely a media invention, but a loose assemblage of writers

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3021 words

Citation: Tredell, Nicolas. "John Braine". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 04 June 2014 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=544, accessed 21 November 2024.]